Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1887-06-15

the last local primary elections, which
were held April %, is made, showing
that OF % Republican primaries, l3 were
held in liquor saloons, or in halls where
liquor could be bought conveniently. The
World says:
"The Eighth Assembly District is well
known as q liquor saloon district. 1t is
guarded faithfully in the interest OF the
Republicans by John J. 0'Brien, and,
although it is a close district, it has a
Republican Assemblyman, elected by
the liquor-saloon machine. In this dis
trict, which is bounded by Division and
Stanton streets, and the Bowerv and
Norfolk streets, there are 57,442 people,
and 4S2 saloons, or one saloon to every
ll9 of the population. Most of the sa-
loon keepers in this district are Republi-
cans, and this is due to the master
hand of the recognized party
leader. Police protection from ar
arrest for violation of the Excise
laws it the district leaders duty to sup
ply to saloon keepers, and it is noticeable
that there are more arrests of Demo-
cratic saloon keepers for breach of this
law than there are of Republicans, the
reason being apparent. Next to 0'Brien
in point of influence in this district is
Barney Rourke, who, besides being a
wealthy distiller himself, is interested in
six retail liquor places in the district.
Rourke is power in the district which
the city politicians do not fail to recog-
niEe in fact, he is almost as powerful as
O'Brien, a circumstance to which is at
tributed the coldness now existing be-
tween the two. II one wishes to find an
example of another Republican leader
and liquor man, there is Sheridan Shook,
the brewer, who once wrote a dispatch
which fell into unexpected hands, and
told how successful he had been in
securing legislative protection for
New York's Republican saloon-keepers. ="
Then again, the World points out how
largely the saloon element enters into
the makeup of the Republican County
Committee, showing that it is a pro-
saloon committee by large major ty,
with the notorious Sheridan Shook, the
great brewer, as Chairman. To illustrate
the workings of the Republican saloon
machine, the World cites a notable in
stance-the election of Ashbel P. Fitch
to Congress over General Viele in the
Thirteenth district last fall. Fitch, the
Republican candidate, was the attorney
of the Brewers Association. At the
election in 1884, Viele was chosen by
6,595 majority, while Fitch his opponent
last fall, with the big brewers influence
at his back, overturned that majority and
was himself elected by 1872 votes over
Viele.
The influence of the wholesale brewers
in the city and State politics, is. wide
one, the World says, and exerted on the
Republican side. Again quoting the
World:
Brewer William A. Miles, of this city,
who was reelected president of the
United States Brewers Association, the
other day at the convention in Baltimore,
said in an interview not long ago that
two-thirds of the brewers and saloon
keepers in this State were Republicans,
and this is the army that is called into
action by the Republican leaders one
election after another"
And yet Republican managers get up
anti-saloon meetings in New York and
tell the people through the Tribune that
their party is "the enemy of the
sAloons!"
No one is deceived by this suddenly de.
veloped Republican anti-saloon zeal, and
least of all the Prohibitionists them.
selves. OF a late Republican anti
saloon meeting, DR.. Fink, the editor of
The Voice, the Prohibition organ, says:
"The meeting at Cooper Institute was
dead-alive sort of affair. There were
only about four hundred people present.
What was said does not reflect the senti-
ments of the Republican leaders, from
what we know OF them. If Shed Shook
wanted to fill that hall with pro-saloon
Republicans, be could easily have done
SO. The Republican party in this city is
largely saloon party. We should say
that two-thirds Of the saloon men in New
York are Republicans.